Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

  I heard him at the console. Should I abandon the gun and tackle him instead? No, he was far stronger than me. I needed that gun. The gun was the only way to stop him. Before he brought ruin down upon us all. It was here somewhere. Somewhere under all the odd socks, discarded clothing, books, papers, plates, drinks containers. It was here. Find the gun, Maxwell. Find the bloody gun.

  My mind was racing. How long to lay in coordinates? He wouldn’t have to waste time with calculations. I was betting they were seared into his brain. I was panicking. Why couldn’t I find this bloody gun?

  Stop. Stop. Take one second to slow down. You know it’s here. Be methodical. Take one second to slow down.

  I did. I breathed in and then I breathed out. Then, ignoring the hot pain in my arm, I moved both hands in small circular movements, methodically covering the area.

  Success. I found it almost immediately, under a plate smeared with what I could only hope was very old tomato sauce. I grabbed it, wriggled backwards out from under the console and, still on my back, I raised the gun, tried to ignore the really sick-making pain in my forearm and fired.

  The shot sounded enormously loud in this small space.

  I caught him high in the shoulder. The impact jerked him backwards and swung him around. He fell across the console. For a moment he sprawled and then, with a shout of triumph, he reached across. He’d found what he was looking for. The ignition, as Adrian and Mikey called it. Clenching his fist, he hit it with a thump.

  The whole pod began to vibrate. There was an ear-splitting whine escalating to a scream – although that might have been me.

  Typically, I’d achieved the very thing I’d been trying to prevent.

  There was the familiar lurch. My stomach fell away. Everything flickered.

  And the world went purple.

  37

  Until I’d actually had to make a series of jumps in this pod, I’d had no idea how rough time travel could be. How cushioned we were in our really rather luxurious pods. Safety protocols hadn’t been the only thing Mikey and Adrian hadn’t bothered with. Comfort was obviously not a word in their dictionary, either. I felt the familiar urge to bring up my lunch, together with the even more familiar too weak to do anything about it sensation. Not a good combination.

  The only good thing was that it had affected Ronan the same way. I’d been expecting a rough jump. He hadn’t. He was sprawled all over the console with that strange, inward look of someone struggling to keep his insides inside.

  Believe it or not, the best and quickest cure is cheese. At this point, Adrian or Mikey would usually hand me a sweaty lump of yellow stuff, I’d munch away, and slowly my insides would resume their proper form and function. I didn’t have any cheese on me at the moment, and neither, I was fairly certain, would Ronan.

  Wherever and whenever we were – we landed hard. Very hard indeed. Already on the floor, I bounced. I lay for a while, fighting nausea and disorientation, and then I remembered where and when we’d probably landed and decided I’d better get up and do something about it. People tell me off because apparently I don’t always stop to think, but sometimes there’s just no time. Reflexes kick in. If we were where and when I thought we were . . . then we almost certainly had two Clive Ronans in the same place. One in here and one out there. I’d been too late to prevent the jump but perhaps I could minimise the damage . . .

  I lifted the gun to fire again.

  He pushed himself off the console and faced me. Blood was staining his tunic, running down his arm and dripping off his fingers. I could hear the individual drops splat on to the floor. His teeth were bared. Whether in pain or in triumph, I had no idea.

  We looked at each other. This was the end. For one or both of us – this was the end. Time telescoped . . . the moment hung endlessly . . . I sighted down the gun, my damaged arm trembling with the strain . . . and then . . . something was . . . wrong . . .

  I stared at him. It was his eyes. Something was horribly wrong with his eyes. His left pupil slowly expanded until it was enormous. It filled his iris. At the same time, his right pupil shrank to invisibility. The tiniest pinpoint. It was beyond unsettling. It was terrifying. He reached out hands for me.

  Instinct told me to get as far away from him as possible. Still clutching the gun, I scrabbled backwards across the floor until I was hard up against one of the bunks. I don’t know for certain but I think he was blind. I wondered if he was in pain, but when I thought about it afterwards, I don’t think he was feeling anything at all. I think he was already dead.

  His right leg jerked so violently he nearly lost his balance. Then his left. At the same time his arms made a series of uncoordinated spasms that weren’t related either to each other or his legs. It was as if every part of his body was operating independently. And wrongly. Like a badly articulated puppet. A puppet with tangled strings.

  He jerked his way around the pod, one limb at a time. There was no control. No coordination. I wondered if he’d had some sort of neural event and then I suddenly realised – the smartdust. The stuff the Time Police had implanted in his brain that would detonate at the correct time and kill him. ‘People will think he’s had a stroke,’ they’d said.

  This didn’t look to me like any sort of stroke. This was a nightmare. A vision from hell. I couldn’t believe this was how he was supposed to end. Typical bloody Time Police. Even their smartdust hadn’t worked properly.

  The pod was suddenly filled with the smell of faeces and urine. A dark patch appeared on his tunic. At the same time, in a high, hideous, off-key voice, he began to sing. The melody – if you could call it that – was familiar but not familiar. I couldn’t make it out to begin with and then I had it. The children’s favourite.

  ‘All things bright and beautiful.’

  The hairs on my arms rose up. The skin tightened on the back of my neck. I was trapped in this small space with this . . . this . . . I’m not sure, at that point, what he was. Whatever had made him Clive Ronan had, I think, departed. And then he fell over me.

  I can’t describe the revulsion of having him sprawl across me. He felt heavy. Heavier than expected. I couldn’t get out from under him. His hands were cold and wet and flopped about like dying fish. One rested on my face. The other entangled itself in my hair. His breath stank of something that had turned rancid a long time ago, and gusted into my face. This close, the whites of his eyes were shot through with broken veins. Even as I looked another starburst of red appeared. His hands pawed at me. I don’t think he was aware of what he was doing. Or of his surroundings. I don’t think his brain was working. Not the higher functions anyway. He began to grunt.

  I struggled, panic gnawing at the edges of my thoughts.

  One of his jerking arms knocked the gun out of my hand. It fell next to him and I think his hand closed automatically. And now he had the gun.

  I found some strength, pushed him off me in revulsion and scrambled to my feet. Every bit of me wanted out of that pod but I couldn’t. I didn’t know whether keeping Ronan here, with the hatch shut, actually prevented him contaminating the outside world with his other presence, but it was a straw I was prepared to clutch at. At the moment I’d clutch at anything. So the hatch would stay shut.

  The first shot ricocheted around the pod. I saw sparks as it caromed around the walls. Shit. I rolled back under the console again and then peered out. I had to get the gun off him before he did some serious damage. Either to the pod or to me.

  He was jerking his way around the pod, still singing – if you could call it that – knees pumping high, arms swinging, eyes operating independently of one another. Blood ran from his ears.

  ‘All things wise and wonderful.’

  His high-pitched, almost child-like voice was setting my teeth on edge.

  The gun went off again. The shot embedded itself in one of the bunks. I don’t think he was deliberately firing, I think his
muscle contractions were setting the gun off – and of course, he had no idea what he was doing or the danger of doing it in here.

  The smell of cordite was very strong in this tiny space. And all the time he was juddering and shuddering around the pod, his arms thrashing wildly at the empty air. There was no way I could get close enough to him to get the gun off him.

  For how long would he be like this? This shell – this jerking, malfunctioning puppet thing – was only a former human being . . . How long could he last? His convulsions were becoming more and more violent. The gun went off again. Again, the bullet sang around the walls.

  I pushed myself further back under the console.

  He stopped suddenly. His head rolled around on his shoulders. As if he didn’t have the strength to support it any longer. He giggled horribly and didn’t seem able to stop. Bloody mucus ran from his nose. His giggles rose higher and higher until he was squeaking with laughter.

  The Time Police had told me the smartdust would explode. It didn’t. Yet another thing they got completely wrong. It imploded. His head imploded. A crater appeared over his right temple, spreading outwards. He stood still, arms hanging loosely at his sides, like an ape. Then his eye socket collapsed. His eyeball fell on to his cheek. His body began to shudder. He dropped the gun.

  His cheekbone sagged – as if his face had gone soft. The corner of his mouth drooped. Now the whole right side of his face was just . . . hanging there . . . like an empty sack, as if only the skin was holding it together. He must have been in agony. If he was capable of feeling pain.

  It was horrible. The gun was right in front of me. Without taking my eyes off him, and holding my breath because I didn’t want to do anything to make him notice me, I very slowly reached out and gathered it in.

  The terrible convulsions still had him in their grip. So violent were they that at one point, I think he’d dislocated his shoulder. This was inhumane. No one should have to endure this, no matter what they’d done in the past. I swallowed, found my voice, and because these were his last moments, I said, ‘I’m sorry, Clive. If I’d had my way, you’d have gone quickly and cleanly in the Cretaceous,’ and aimed the gun.

  I hadn’t noticed we were on fire. For which I think I might be forgiven. One of his bullets must have done some damage somewhere. Flames were licking around his right leg. He didn’t seem to notice. I could smell burning flesh. With a small roar, flames ran across the floor. In a moment the blankets on the bunks would be alight and I needed the bunks to climb out through the hatch.

  I said again, ‘I’m sorry,’ and tightened my finger on the trigger.

  I never had to fire. At exactly that moment, his head jerked back and his whole body stiffened in one final, brutal convulsion. I heard a spine crack. When he crashed to the floor, he was dead.

  Finally, completely and utterly dead. Trust me – I checked.

  38

  The first thing I did was the second most important thing. I tripped the power switch. There was a gurgling noise and everything went dark. This was Adrian and Mikey’s pod. Of course, they didn’t have emergency lighting. Why would they? Or fire extinguishers. Or a spare ladder.

  The second thing I did was the third most important. I pulled the blankets off the bunks, threw them on the flames and stamped until the flames died away. When the fire was out, I crossed my fingers and flipped the switch back up again. There were a couple of clunks – giving me a very nasty moment – and then everything hummed back into life. This pod was a great deal more robust than it looked.

  The third thing I did was the most important. Still coughing from the smoke and smell, I found a pen rammed into an old coffee mug. Miraculously, it worked. I ripped a piece of paper off the crowded wall – Adrian called them mood boards, everyone else called it litter – and, eyes streaming, flicked back through the coordinates until I found the ones I wanted.

  We have a kind of shorthand for writing coordinates. There are certain combinations that can be represented by a symbol. Two long sets of numbers and letters can take a long time to write and so sometimes we take shortcuts. Not today. I made myself ignore the smoke and the coughing and the runny nose and meticulously copied every last figure. And I did it properly. I didn’t want anyone confusing a g with a 9. Or an s with a 5. Or an o with a 0. Or a 1 with a 7, or any of the other many things that could go wrong. When I’d finished, I checked every single digit. I read them aloud, comparing them to the read-out on the console. Then I tucked the piece of paper away. Very, very carefully.

  I left the gun behind. If I was where and when I thought I was, I couldn’t see it doing me the slightest bit of good. And besides, it belonged to Dr Bairstow.

  I climbed up the bunks, fumbled for the hatch and somehow got it open. A small cloud of black smoke exited with me. It occurred to me I’m not really what you’d call an ideal house guest.

  I called, ‘My name is Maxwell and I’m coming out. I’m unarmed.’ Very slowly and cautiously, I stuck my head out of the hatch.

  I’ve never seen so many guns and I speak as someone who’s enjoyed more than her fair share of winding up the Time Police. On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling if they hadn’t grown accustomed to battered and bloodstained historians falling out of their pods then they just weren’t doing their job properly.

  As I suspected, I was at St Mary’s – in Hawking Hangar, but not my Hawking – this was a future Hawking Hangar.

  I wasn’t much in a sightseeing mood but there were things I couldn’t help noticing. This one was a different shape, constructed of different materials and with far fewer pods. I suppose some of them could be out but there were fewer plinths as well.

  The basics were the same. Such pods as they had were parked in the familiar formation along the walls. Everything was very tidy. There were no trailing umbilicals. All the electrics were neatly stowed away. There was better lighting. The place seemed perfectly clean but there was . . . I don’t know . . . an air about it. I don’t want to be unkind, but ‘sterile’ was the word I would have used. I like a bit of St Mary’s clutter. Leon’s Hawking is crowded, but sharp and crisp – things happen in it – but this one . . . Of course, that might be because something awful had just finished happening here.

  My second impression was that I’d been right. Something terrible had happened here. I could smell cordite and the burned-paper smell of blaster fire. People lay dead. I could see three . . . no, four blanket-covered bodies lying around. If I listened, I was sure I’d be able to hear the dying echoes of gunfire.

  Over to my right, lights strobing over an empty plinth denoted a recently departed pod. No prizes for guessing who that had been. My stomach clenched. Clive Ronan had got his calculation fractionally wrong. His younger self had jumped at literally the same moment his older self had landed. Had there been just the tiniest fraction of an overlap? Was that why he’d imploded? Or was it that his time was up and his smartdust had gone off? I’d probably never know. And actually, did I care? Because whatever had happened, the main crisis was over with.

  That thought was short-lived. Every gun in the place was pointed at me and no one looked very friendly.

  At the base of the flashing plinth, a young woman in a hospital gown red with blood lay on her back staring up at the roof. Her arms were outflung. A medic knelt beside her, quietly putting away his equipment. She was dead. There were long bloodstains smeared across the floor. Ronan must have tried to drag her into the pod. Had she already been dead? Dr Bairstow had said Ronan himself had killed her. By accident, he’d said. I could picture the scene. A hail of gunfire – Annie struggling to get away. Making a run for it. Ronan chasing after her, firing as he went. A careless shot, perhaps. Or a ricochet. Whichever it was, they were both dead now.

  The circle was closing.

  I sighed and dragged my eyes away from the remains of Annie Bessant.

  I couldn’t even begin to count h
ow many guns I was looking at. Behind me the pod was still belching out smoke. The smell was awful, although to be fair, the smell had been quite bad before.

  An elderly man stepped from between the ranks. I was convinced I’d seen him before. ‘Would you come down, please?’

  Actually, easier said than done. We had to wait while someone found a ladder. A little bit of an anti-climax but finally, I was at ground level, having very carefully secured the hatch behind me.

  The guns looked even bigger from down here. Two people pushed past me with some sort of fire extinguishers. Because whatever this current crisis was, a pod apparently on fire and possibly about to blow up topped everything, up to and including a nuclear explosion.

  I said, ‘It’s OK – the fire is out.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Certain.’

  They stepped back.

  The elderly man said, ‘I am the Director of this establishment.’

  I nodded. Yes, he was. I had seen him before. When we and the Time Police signed the Treaty of St Mary’s.

  I said politely, ‘My name is Maxwell. I am Chief Operations Officer at St Mary’s. We have met before.’

  He nodded. He knew who I was. ‘Are you alone?’

  Now what did I do? My instinct was to say nothing about Clive Ronan. This was their timeline. Clive Ronan was a young man who had just disappeared in a stolen pod to begin a career of murder and mayhem. I shouldn’t do anything to jeopardise that. Edward Bairstow was upstairs, seriously ill, and Leon hadn’t even been recruited yet. He was out there somewhere, going through his own personal hell. I should allow events to take their course.

  I nodded. ‘Yes – just me.’